Hey, Roger, I appreciate the snacks and apparent Crispy Bois. What the hell are we doing here? Well, as our resident Crispy Boi, who for the past four to five years has continually recommended that people drink hams, or there was that one incident where you- That brief incident where you guys gave me out of code hams, and then I recommended a hams clone. A lot of code hams incident. Wait, is the official title Crispy Boi, or is he Crispy Jaw Boi, or whatever he calls himself? No, Jaw Boi enjoys crispy beers. Crispy Boi. You're listening to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Today, we are going to talk about Crispy Bois. It's everything Crispy. About damn time. So, I'm Roger, I work in beer. In the studio today with me, we have... Hey, I'm Pat, I eat the snacks. Hey, I'm Chris, I work in wine, and I am the snack. All right, I'm out of here. Jim, Communications. I'm Ray, and I am for want of a better description, the itinerant wine critic for binnys.com. You are indeed. You're like Moriarty on the road. Except with a lot more data entry. Yeah, yeah, he wasn't doing much of that. All right, so this term Crispy Boi, getting thrown around a lot these days, it's literally made its way on the packaging, so I think it's a real thing. But it means different things to different people. So, recently been doing some logger classes, and one of the things that I make sure people try is the origin of the Pilsner style. We try like a Pilsner or Cal alongside a Czechvar. What's surprising to a lot of people is how expressively bitter traditional Pilsner beers can be. And if you're not ready for it, it can be a bit much. So, then we kinda walk our way through some other examples of lagers, some German Pilsners, and talk about how in the United States, after Prohibition, there was this effort to make, as beer consolidated between a smaller group of breweries that were then marketing their beer all across the country and then all across the world, the target was to produce these golden, refreshing lagers that were initially inspired by the classic Pilsners of Bohemia, Germany, but started to liven up the carbonation, dial back the bitterness way down, and then most importantly incorporate cereal grain adjuncts like corn or rice that ferment out completely and leave a drier, crisper body. So people, when they talk about wanting a Crispy Boi or a crispy lager, we're hitting at that well-fermented, highly attenuated beer that's pretty lean in its structure, is very refreshing, and because it's so lean is the type of thing that you can drink quite a bit of. When people ask, why is it that six packs became the preferred method of purchasing beer in the US.? Initially, the thought process was that that was what a wife would be most comfortable with her husband consuming in a sitting, would be like six beers at a time, and it was also an easy amount to carry. So again, we're looking at beer that is meant to be enjoyed quite a few of. It's not like we're drinking a pastry, sour pastry stout here. These are crushable lagers. So what we're gonna go through here is a blind tasting of stuff that's made at the big macro breweries in scale, something that's been produced by, for oftentimes 100 years or more in giant volumes. Then we're gonna try some that are also made at very small craft breweries from around the neighborhood. It should be an interesting mix, but all of these beers would fit under this new kind of umbrella of what we're calling a premium American lager. So some of them are made with adjuncts, some are all malt, but what they're supposed to taste like. They are all flavor, baby. They're crispy. And we're going to do the initial tasting blind to try to see what we truly think is worth your time and money, because it's kind of the controversial aspect to this is that some of these crafty iterations of what is essentially build a premium American lager or premium light American lager, they're at premium craft prices in some cases. So I really wanted to do this blind. It's going to be quite a few beers to try through. We're also going to be eating salty snacks, which Pat just can't resist as I'm talking to be messing with the bags. Dude, did you see how many pretzels came pouring out of this Utz Hoops mix? I got all pretzels. Yeah, that bag crinkling is hardcore ASMR. Yeah, NPR ASMR. Yeah, exactly. Which has got to be a category. So Crispy Beer Numero Uno. Let's give it a taste. This of course is going to be an exercise in nuance. There's going to be a lot of overlap here. I've changed my rating on this three times now. It's initially creamy and like a tiny bit yeasty, and then it's crisp and then it just kind of disappears. It's very flat on the finish. There's not much finish at all. Yeah, I'm not really a fan of this one. I agree there's some creaminess up front. The carbonation is very, very fine. Yeah, it's well carbonated. Yeah, nicely carbonated. Color is nice golden color. Crystal clear. But on the palette, I'm getting a lot of like appley fruity notes, but just kind of flat on the finish. There's not a lot of hop cut. It doesn't do much for me. Definitely on the sweet side for me, it's kind of like a sweet old style in my book. Do love a good old style. Yeah, totally sweet already. Well, you know how the kreusening gives it that kind of like short like finish. And that's what I get from this. I think this is only partially kreusening, not fully kreusening. Roger, do you think that a 50s era housewife would be OK with someone drinking that giant old style six pack they have up in La Crosse? Probably not. I also don't think they would like the new Paps 180 pack that is essentially a box covering for 630 racks of Paps. Old style of note, old style production has returned to La Crosse now for the first time in decades as of I want to say like mid December. So any old style you're going to get in one of our stores now is La Crosse made, not made at Miller anymore. Apparently it was a big pain in the butt for them because that brewery had been stripped down equipment wise to only produce clear flavorless malt base that then gets turned into things like Smirnoff Ice and Mike's Hard Lemonade. So what did they have to do to change it? They had to put new brewing equipment back in. Yeah, I know. I'm not going to let you insult old style like that. Notably, old style, Maddie Photographer's favorite beer. Really? Why should I shut up? She mentioned in passing that she likes it. She does love it quite a bit. Well, I omit it old style because it is deserving of its nickname of old pile. It's great beer. I drink that beer all the time. We have 13 beers and you do not drink old style all the time. I absolutely do. For every ham, so there's at least one. I've never seen you drink an old style ever. I drink it at my uncle's house like three times a week. Well, you normally drink hams and you never shut up about it. If you're ever at Wrigley, you drink old style. You know what I had the other day though was a Schmidt because my neighbor brought some back from Minnesota. Do they have any cool cans anymore like these, those hunting cans? They do. I'm going to bring some Schmidt back. I'm going to be in Minnesota next week. I'm going to bring some Schmidt back. Those were great to collect in the 70s. I've got a whole bunch of them in a cabinet in my basement actually. All the different game animals. Yeah. Are we ready for Crispy Boi number two? Only if it has a duck on it. Only if you stop slowing us down with all this random side track. This one looks cloudier. Yeah. Ooh. Nose on that. Not a fan. Is that peanut butter? On the nose, not the snacks. It does smell like peanut butter. This one just smells and tastes like the fermentation cellar at a sloppy craft brewery. It's kind of cloudy. It's pretty flavorless. Not a huge fan of that. Hopefully Funky Monkey hasn't been taken if they haven't named this beer yet. Again, I can't, but what it shares in common with the last one is kind of a flat kind of cardboardy finish. I don't have much good to say about this one. It has kind of that like at first I hear what you're saying about peanut butter, but now it kind of reminds me of like breakfast cereal, like Cheerios. That is for sure a chemical compound that you sometimes find as a result of fermentation. Forget the name of the word now, it's escaping me, but. I'm going to see if one of these Great Lakes bold sea salt and vinegar potato chips gives it a little needed lift. Am I crazy or should these be crystal clear? Come on. Yeah, they should be crystal clear. Not at all. I mean, there's a couple that won't be crystal clear. Yeah, but why? Why? because we're playing with a couple surprises in here, maybe. But yeah, they should all be pretty clear. I mean, some of them are made by craft producers, so if they're not filtering them, I mean. Well, I'm just saying the style classically would be defined by clear bright. You think we're drinking a craft producers beer or a macro? I think a craft producers. I think so too. If it was a macro, it would be way cleaner. It would be way, it would at least be crystal clear. Yeah. Yes. I'm not getting much of anything here in the term of like. Flavor. Hops or. I mean, it's not much. A little tiny bit on the back end. Maybe it's just this excellent hoops mix talking though. That grainyness. Which is a mix of tortilla chips, barbecue corn chips, nacho cheese, nachos, basketball shaped pretzels and cheese crunchies for those keeping along at home. I'm going to underline that kind of cereal grain thing you noted. It's really prominent. I don't know. It's weird. It can't be, but it feels like raw grain on my palate rather than roasted or toasted. It tastes like Cheerios. It's very bizarre. Plain boring, good for your heart Cheerios that no one wants to eat. I like those. But pass on this next. With a little bit of the cardboard box. On a side note, the Nacho Cheese Strip really erases the flavor of beer number two. Flavor eraser. This one smells a little old. Whoa. Lots of hop character in this one. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, that's the hoppiest of the nos by far. Nice color. It's the darkest so far. It also has decent hops on the finish, although they're not particularly interesting hops, I don't think. I consider the style. I know. Don't be Greging us here. Don't begrudge my big Gregory. I hear what Chris is saying because this is definitely a one-note beer. From start to finish, it's not changing. It's just singing the same tune. It's not a bad tune. I don't love it. I don't hate it, but if it were Hot Out or the beer guy were walking past me at the ballgame, I would give him my, what is it now, $15. If you're going to those fancy North Side baseball games, you want to see some not winning and have cheaper beer, you got to go to the South Side. Hey, shout out to Pop Daddy Pretzels Beer Cheese Pretzel Sticks. These were pretty good with this. I haven't had that. I'm a fan of these guys. I really like the hot sauce ones. They're my favorite, but the beer cheese are also really good. Hot sauce ones? Yes, yes. Pop Daddy. Well, those are good. But check your location because all locations may not have all flavors. They had like five or six out here at Lincolnwood. It strikes me despite its pretty nice golden color, it's kind of watery and washed out in the character. No, you're right. It's very easy to doctor up the color of a beer. In fact, I remember reading in the research for one of these beers that they put some black malt in it. Can you believe that? Wow. It was like, that's a neat trick, kind of interesting. I was at a brewery in Belgium once that makes and markets a notable dark triple they just add caramel coloring to. Yeah. Nice. That move too. Not terrible, not remarkable either. I think you guys are all spot on. It's kind of one dimensional. It's a little washed out. Surprising hob character though. Yeah. It's got to be from a craft person. I would agree with that. All right, number four. Ooh, here's an anemic looking. Someone hand me those beer cheese pretzels. I'm very worried about the red bloodsail camera here. Yeah, this. I think get what Chris is throwing down on that one. It's like something you might find in a trough. It doesn't smell much better either. It's kind of vegetal smelling. It's very nice. It's tangy and sour on the palate. Why? It is tangy. Yeah, it kind of reminds me of when this beer is terrible. When you like God, that's off. Is it off? Is it like? It's like buttery, right? There's a lot of weird stuff going on. It's kind of like when you open a bag of Fritos and you get that first whiff of them. It's just it's very unbeer like. That's like tart, extremely, I might be infected. What is that Tang? I mean, it should that should not be here. PDO caucus. Yeah, that's awful. Oh my God. Man, we are just rocking it today. Oh, I hope that does not come in a 30 pack. Only 180 packs. I mean, I think there's PDO in there. I think they're I mean, you guys are getting acidity from that too, right? Well, I'll be sad to find out who that is. Yeah. So will they if they're not already. Again, we do it out of love for the beer. No pulling any punches. So true. It could be somebody that we normally think is a great brewery, but. Well, mistakes happen. And I mean, how much more does it cost for a craft producer to logger a beer? Because they're tying up tank space, right? So it's got to be what, you know, 20%, 30% more expensive just to make from the amount of time you have to logger it. All the more reason to get it right. Well, this is the deep end of brewing. So if you're, you know, a newer listener to us, we've definitely done several logger episodes in the past that you should check out. It's definitely something that we're all very passionate about. While I'm very excited to see local people trying loggers, because I know so much of the conversation that revolves around beer these days is about supporting local, and I'm all about that too, as long as they're giving you something that's worth your money. If they're making logger that is full of a bunch of noticeable flaws, it's not worth your money. Of course not. I mean, you might as well be buying Miller or Bud or whatever. It's often been said that, you know, when it comes to making loggers, especially pale colored ones, this is the deep end of brewing because there's nowhere for your mistakes to hide. You know, there's not a pronounced hop profile or there's not, you know, big grain bills. This is as lean and stripped down as beer gets. So if you make a mistake, it's going to show. Yep. Number five, I think is outstanding. It's got this soft pillowy grain aroma that kind of is also reflected in this big pillowy head. It's crisp. It's clean. It's got a touch of hops on the finish. I think this, in my opinion, for my money, is the best beer we've had so far. I don't think there's any question about that, but the competition hasn't been great. Yeah, this is well made. Little floral hop in the nose. You're right. Very creamy. It's very frothy. It's almost like it's a draft beer. There's good head retention. It's a nice white tight knit head. I mean, it's leaving thick rings of lacing in this little plastic cup. Yeah. Behold the Belgian lace. Yeah, this is a standout so far. I still think you're being generous with some of the hop description. I mean, you're a super taster and you're sussing it out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it is light and the hops are subtle. Yeah. By no means a hoppy beard will get me. There's some malty sweetness. I don't know about adjuncts here. I get a little graininess that I'm thinking it's maybe got some corn in there. Yeah, quite possibly. But nevertheless, I think by far, this is the standout of this round. All right. Number six. I think this displays a nice balance. I think there's some malt sweetness followed by a nice hop background. I think it's more corn sweetness. It's got a macro-y, slightly floral hop character, but then it's crisp, lightly sweet, dry finish. One thing I would point out, Jim in particular, are you keeping these on ice? Because this one is significantly colder than the other ones. I'm just pulling them out of the cooler. I know that as well. Yeah. I mean, it's making it a little harder to judge. I mean, it tastes for sure. These are going to taste. That one was, I think, the coldest of all of them. Right. And that's why it probably tastes the best. I want to say, yeah, it tastes pretty good at this temperature, but I don't know. But you got to judge it on, like, warmth at a warm temperature. All right. So what are you doing? I don't know. That one was very cold. Just warm it up. You know how. Just save it and return to it later. We have one snack we haven't opened yet, by the way, which is one of the more oddball things we carry. So if you bought snacks at the Binny's, you know we sell hers brand chips. They're out of Pennsylvania. They have all kinds of wacky flavors. So we've got Buffalo Blue Cheese Cheese Curls here. Oh, this is one of my favorites. I agree. I really love this one. I like the deep dish pizza cheese curls as well. A baby back ribs one. So I haven't been paying too much attention to the snacks, but they're like corn chip frito things from your hoop mix. I think those are supposed to be barbecue flavored. Pretty good. Pat and I didn't lay these out on a plate nicely like Roger does with the food. And we're all insulted. No, we just opened bags and said, get your hands in there, scumbag. Okay with beer number six, I could probably drink two or three of these while polishing off a bag of the buffalo blue cheese hers. I mean, that would be a very nice pairing, especially at this cold temperature. And we're really hitting our stride here with numbers five and six. I agree. And that does really work together too. Right. All right. Number seven. This one's going to be warmer, Chris. FYI, it's too warm, Jim. What are you doing? Why don't you keep these on ice? I mean, we should have some kind of draft system in here, honestly. That is an excellent idea. I'm sure that'll be approved. No dishwasher, no permanent studio, but you'll get a draft setup for you. So, I'm a little different here. Curious what you guys think. I would say definitely a macro. It's got that macro tang. I think it's hoppier. Maybe a little bit. This one falls a little flat for me. Just kind of lays there and doesn't really do anything. Yeah, I think there might be a little more hop character in this. I keep going back and forth between macro or not, which is kind of my problem with some of these is that if they land in so similar of, you know, for really splitting hairs and they're teetering on that line. Right. That's why you're paying five times as much. Yeah. That's where the price point becomes bonkers. So yeah, to me, I mean, this has kind of soft, multi-sweetness up front and there is a little more bitterness on the back end. Yeah. I still think it could be a macro. It's kind of reminded me of like the old, the bitter beer face type of bitterness. Yeah. That kind of earthy cluster hop bitterness. I like it. I like it quite a bit and I'm giving it a high rating. I think it's probably Kraft because it's pretty hoppy. It really is, surprisingly so. But not so much in the nose. It's all the finishing off. It's all on the back end. Yeah, for sure. Also pairs wonderfully with the Buffalo Blue Cheese Cheese Curls. The Ocho. This one. Number eight. Pairs well with dodgeball. Well, I have to say, all of these have remarkably well dissolved carbon dioxide. Everything has tiny, tiny bubbles, which you would expect. Jim, intermix some tiny bubbles there. Little Don Ho. You want me to sing it, or should I get the? These beers are really calling my name here. We're on a hot streak as far as my taste goes. Just what the doctor ordered at $2.45 on a Monday. Could you drink a couple two trees of these, I'm thinking? Couple two tree dozen. Couple two tree dozen at your daughter's softball practice or something? Maybe get some pizza afterwards? I was enjoying some hams on a boat in Green Bay this past weekend. Very heavy chop. The walleye chop, so to speak. Almost every story Pat tells starts with, I was enjoying some hams on a boat this weekend. Yeah. How do you like beer number eight? I think it's pretty good. This for me would be the most crushable so far. I don't love the nose. It's the only thing holding it back for me. It's got a bit of a tanginess on the nose and on the palate. Yeah, I agree. That's the one thing that's standing out for me as a little tang. But it is still crisp. As the name implies, it should be. I like it. Beer number nine. This is another one with a bit of tang. It's got a nice maltiness and a good carb, but I'm not finding much else to say about it. Definitely has that macro kind of... It's fairly dark for what that's worth. Yeah. It's a little cloying on the finish. Yeah. It has... It's a little bigger body than Muslin too. It's kind of rounder in the mouth. Maybe some corn at work here. Or even corn syrup perhaps. Yeah. There's definitely a corny sweetness to it, it seems. Yeah. I agree. It's not bad. I'm guessing macro. You're puzzled yet again. Puzzled yet again. I don't know. I could see it being a Coors banquet. Yeah. Yeah, I could see that. I'm not sure it's fruity enough for... Coors is pretty fruity. I think we already hit... That's in the mix. I mean, the fruitiest beer we had so far, in my opinion, was number one. It was full of apple-y fruit to me. Yeah, for sure. Now it smells like apple vinegar. This is tough. This is a lot of nuance here. I mean, there's some slightly floral hop to this in the mouth. I mean, it kind of lingers in the mouth. It's a little tangy. There is respectable hop bitterness. Yeah. I'm leaning towards that this is craft now. Yeah, I might be reassessing too, because there is... I think color alone, I don't think it's macro. Yeah. I think you're right. It's too dark and there's maybe too much hop bitterness on this. I could see it's being the new revolution one. Maybe. I've only had that once and it was a while ago. All right, beer number 10. Now this is a pale macro color. Yeah, but slight haze and it doesn't smell macro at all. No, it does not. Although it does have an essentially beer-y aroma. I don't know, I'm getting like a fish sauce type of element to it. Fish sauce? Is this that new Nam Pla beer? It's got quite the bitterness on the finish. Yeah. Pronounced bitterness. This is craft for sure. Yeah, that's wacky. It's like a west coast IPA bitter on the finish. It's a resiny. Yeah, like a west coast tap house with a Thai restaurant next door. Those are on every other block in the south side of Seattle. Dude, I totally know what you're saying, though. I think it's like lemongrass is what I get. Yeah, there's like an oiliness to it. Yeah, it is bright. It is definitely bright. But the body is so light and there's so much hoppiness. I bet I know what this is. It's a tad out of whack. And if I'm right, bro, if you've definitely had this beer several times before. This tastes like a beer I've had several times before. I like it. It's a major standout. And there were a couple outliers in this that didn't quite fit exactly into what I was describing earlier. I don't think this is a standout at all. I think it's a fine beer, but it's way too bitter for the crispy style. It's a Crispy Boi, not a Bitter Boi. I didn't mean I meant standout just in that it doesn't align with the others, not that it's like exceptional, but it is kind of interesting. It's a Crispy Boi on steroids. Crispy Boi and Bitter Bois are going to rumble. This can be the issue when people are talking about what they want from these. And I think it's worth mentioning that there's the whole Kraft Pilsner argument where a lot of Kraft breweries are really skittish to believe in lager because they've often seen mixed success in the past. And that's because they've typically approached the pale lager style from the Pilsner point of view. Well, if people aren't used to drinking Pilsner's, they're very bitter. They're lean and bitter. So a good Pilsner has a solid malt backbone to stand up to the bitterness. It depends on where it's made. You know, like there's, again, stylistically, the Czech people tend to really like that intense malt but intense hop. So that can be rounded. But then sometimes when you get like a Northern German Pilsner, that's a truly hop forward, you know, lean style. You are correct. I think that some of these breweries should pursue pale lagers differently and maybe think of Pilsner's last and think of things like Helles and Dortmunder first because they're a little more approachable. The alternative is to then emulate Kraft American Lager, which I think is arguably not doing as many people a service because the big guys have figured out how to make those and make them and that's that. But if you strip away a lot of the malt character, I think that's part of why we're having some trouble sussing out some deep commentary to offer on some of these beers, you know? But on the other hand, number 10, awesome with salty snacks. It's the perfect flavor profile for anything that's loaded with salt. I just had one of those OZ pretzels that was just covered in salt and with that beer, perfect combination. Let's try it. I'm trying it with some of the Great Lakes vinegar chips. Very good with the Great Lakes vinegar chips. That really does change everything. Stellar chip from Great Lakes. Great Lakes chips, the best. Pretty, pretty great. That is perfect. I like this beer. I don't know how it fits into the regime here. I mean, I guess stylistically this is important too, but none of these show a lot of aroma hop at all. I find myself wanting for that, especially when there's so much bitterness on the finish. I want to smell the hops in the front and then taste. I could see number 10 being an alarmist Crispy Boi. Not that. Oh, that's a. They call that Pilsner. Yeah. There's only one beer in here that bills itself as a Pilsner. All the rest call themselves either an American lager, premium American lager, and to your hop comment, premium American lagers are designed for drinkability, refreshment, sadly, hop characters, essentially an afterthought. I'm fully aware of this. I'm just saying what I, especially with this last beer, I feel like I would feel better about it if there was more hop aroma along with the wallop of bitter hops in the finish. Hop aroma is pretty wild. I get that definite like herbal lemongrassy. All right, beer number 11. Worth mentioning, one of the beers here is Miller Highlife, which is seven IVUs. I also had a lot of those this past weekend. I was at Pooh's Bar in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, and they have Miller Highlife on draft and you get a frosty little 12-ounce mug, $2.50. I think I probably drank 15 of them on Saturday night. I love it. This beer tastes sugary sweet compared to the other one. I might have just literally nailed it and described Highlife right before we tried it. This has got to be a macro. I'm thinking this could be Highlife, this could be The Beloved. It could. I think you're absolutely right. I think this beer is outstanding and I absolutely love this beer. Well, so tell us, is it hams? You drink more hams than anyone at the table. It's hard to tell when they're in a cup. Yeah. I don't often smell hams because I only drink it out of a can. I will be very surprised if this is not macro. It is soft. It's absolutely macro. It's either hams or Highlife. I don't think it's quite fizzy enough to be Highlife, but maybe that's just a narrative I've created in my head. It's outstanding though, and I would like 12 or 13 more. I mean, it tastes like auto-balance sweet, but I mean, I guess it's just because. You had it right after an out of balance bitter example. I know. I think if you go back and retaste everything before you pass final judgment, Iron Chef style, skip over number 11 and taste it against a couple others. So was the order at random or was there any thought given to the order? Random order. Dungeon Master Jim knows what he's doing here. You mean skip over 10 was the hoppy one. Yeah, yeah, skip over 10. Yeah. Well, I'm just going to say that it has all the hallmarks of a well-made, as Roger pointed out. These guys have figured out how to do it. They do it well. So, you know. Yeah. This is a appeal to the largest audience. So, Kraft Mac and Cheese, Velveeta Grilled Cheese Sandwich, both delicious, not a gruyere on sourdough. Sure. Not a baked mac and cheese casserole, but good on their own right. So, this is a nice, sweeter style American lager. It definitely tastes clean and easy drinking. Another palish one here. Another tangy boi. Gross. I don't know, I might have mitigated the tang because I just ate a vinegar chip. Let's see. Yeah, this one's pretty marginal. Washed out. Yeah, it tastes like absolutely nothing against the vinegar chip. It's very watery, but I think I have a handicap with that. Is this a light beer because it tastes like it got... This is the lightest tasting yet. Well, I mean, it tastes like it has that enzyme that basically wipes everything out. You know, it just puts a big hole in the beer. There are for sure a couple of light beers in here, so... It has the body of a light beer. It is quite washed out. Yeah, it's just tangy, fizzy, nothingness. Yeah, there are no flaws that I can detect, though. It seems like somebody probably spent time making that. It's fine. I would still drink several of these. It's clean. It's clean. Yeah, it's clean beer. Very light. Almost reminds me of the mineral water type, seltzer water, carbonic bite. I think because there's just so little character. When you're talking about carbonic bite in a beer, there's not much else happening. Right, exactly. All right, is this it? Lucky 13. I'm going to go back and rip through them all again, though, after this. I can't taste out of this. And we have left. Jim, you monster, what have you done to me today? We literally ran out of cups from the store. I gave you a real glass. You can pour it in your real glass. Actually, I'm going to pour it in the glass for number four, which I drain poured the whole thing of. Well, this is nice. Nice mouthfeel. Yeah, very nice, soft, creamy, fluffy head, bit of corn. Yeah, sweet graininess for sure. But again, coming after the last one, which was was so flat that this is yeah, like Excitement City compared to the one that tasted like nothing. This is a roller coaster of flavor. This is Grand Theft Auto after playing Pong. The color is very light. It's very clean tasting. There is some grainy sweetness. There's just enough hop balance. It's clean. I feel like the corn definitely comes through in this one. There is actually an example in here that's Kraft and that uses corn. And I think that might be it. That could be this, yeah. So when you try this next to Eleven, I feel like you get the corn character in both. More balance on this one. I've totally lost track of my beers. So they're all over the place. Yeah, actually, Eleven tastes even sweeter now. Eleven is great. High probability Eleven is famous. Five, six, seven, Eleven, easily my favorite beers of the day. I went back, I adjusted only two grades. Oh man, this is a beer tasting bill for me, that's for sure. Well, you were definitely the inspiration for this. I know you've always been big on the kind of loggers you can crush in many at a time. That's because I have no self-control. Yeah, I mean, they're definitely marketing these to somebody like yourself that oftentimes buys, you know, like your hams or PBR. The real question mark here is that when we do the reveal, the price points are all over the board. That's gonna make a big difference. I think the point here is like, yeah, like you keep saying, like, why buy these? Because they're delicious. No, why buy the craft version? $11 a six pack when probably one of the best beers of the day was was hams or Miller Highlife or something, right? Well, should we reveal? Let's find out. Then we could revisit and see. The reveal is that these are all hams, Pat. We've been planning this for the last 13 months. We've been picking each month a can, and then it expires. A different code date of hams. The February hams was the best. I really like the February hams. Number one. Montaki Cold Snacks. Wow, that was not good. Yeah, it wasn't good. I've had this several times and never really enjoyed it. I don't get the infatuation with this beer. It's sweet, old style. That's what I said in the beginning. That's like, it changes my opinion of that beer. Isn't it an ale? Zero. No, it's a lager. Is it? No. But it's flat and bland and dumb. So you were very astute in pointing out that it was old style-esque because I believe this is made in La Crosse, Wisconsin at City Brewing. The Montaki Cold Snacks story is a strange one. So essentially, some ski bums noticed that all these people were skiing in Montana and just crushing Pabst. And they thought, you know, why don't we make our own beer that tastes like Pabst, brand it differently? And then their big takeaway was we should give some people a reason to believe. So they donate 8% of the profits after costs to various causes. They of course put that on the can in giant, oh, they changed it now. It used to be on the outside, in huge things they write 8%, but then they don't write, you know, to charity or anything like that. They're giving 8% to someone, but we don't. They think it's 8% ABV. So yeah, a lot of people think it's an 8% ABV beer. What is it really, like four, four and a half? Like it says. Yeah, but on here it's not as a, it's pretty normal here. It says 8% back to local causes, but on the packaging at first, it was like giant 8% and everyone thought it was ABV, but. It amounts to about 8% of a good beer. I will say that Montucky Cold Snack Success has inspired a lot of these other craft breweries to try to make this style of beer. And the problem with that approach is that Montucky is not a brewery. It's a company and they just contract brew the beer and they do so at a facility that's making essentially macro beer, macro processes, macro ingredients. So this is 4.1% ABV, 102 calories, 4.95 carbs. So if you do look at it from the sense of that this is light beer, which is not something they really lean into on the packaging, this would really be more akin to drinking like a paps light, not a normal paps. So it definitely not for me. I think it's way too washed out, but it's worth mentioning that it's 4.1, 102 calories. So it kind of is out of the category for a lot of these. And then price wise, it's not that far off from macro prices. So you can get a 12 pack of this for 13.99. Again, I think it's way too macro fruitier, wears it on its sleeve type of thing. I don't think you're getting anything too interesting, but again. Yeah, you can get a 30 pack of PBR for the same price when it's on sale. Right. All right, beer number one. This is a volume game here. Yeah, Montucky Cold Snacks is beer number one. How about beer number two? Riggs American Lager, they're down in Champagne, right? Yes. Huh, this is the one that we all got that grainy peanut buttery type note off of. I said yeasty, fermenty, craft made. So, cool story with Riggs is that they grow a portion of the grain that goes into this beer. So, they call this an American Lager. It's not really intended to be light. It harkens back to the original American recipes of beer where brewers in the 1800s in particular were faced with. The majority of the barley grown here was six row instead of two row. You try to do a traditional lager recipe with six row. You're just gonna deal with tons of protein. It's gonna be hazier. It's not gonna look right, taste right. So, they grow a portion of barley and they definitely grow six row down in champagne. You mean two row, it won't look right? No. You said six row. If you grow a lot, if you do a lager with six row? Yeah, right. That's what all lagers are made out of. All the original lagers in Europe and everything were made with two row. And then at the time, in here in America, most people were growing six row barley, which you use for like cattle feed and everything, is a much thicker hull and you get more tannic character, but then it also has much higher protein potential. So until they realized that by adding some corn to the beer, it made it so that they could make these beers. So corn in recipes today is oftentimes used just for quick fermentables that make it drier and lighter. But if you were to see like a pre-prohibition recipe, they were using corn for its ability to clean up that process and make the beer look and taste more like what they were accustomed to when they were brewing with Touro. Barley manipulation is huge over time now. So we grow tons of Touro now in the US and grain is so modified now, but they still wanted to be able to grow their own barley. So if they're gonna try to grow barley and champagne, they still do the old fashioned Touro, or old fashioned Six Row. So they partnered up with University of Illinois and found a really low oil, white corn, which they can use when they brew this beer. So it's really hearkens back more to what it was brewers were doing back in the 19th century as opposed to people using like grits that they cooked in a cereal cooker or just corn syrup. So they're actually using like whole corn kernels that they grow. So some of the unique character here then is probably that mixture of rigs grown, six row barley, corn, and then they purchase some Touro. Still came out a little hazy. Yeah. It's definitely got an old timey feel to it. I mean, this is more retro than retro. Right. It's a good history lesson. Second lowest rated beer on the day for me. Hello. All right. Worth mentioning, it's 5% ABV, 17 IBUs. It's Magnum and Crystal Hops. And this is gonna be at straight up craft pricing though. So this is a four pack, 16 ounce cans, 11.99. Pass. Beer number three. Founder's Solid Gold. I haven't had this in a long time. Right? At least 15 minutes. I did think it was kinda hoppy. Yeah, 15 minutes. I said it was old smelling. I always thought that this beer was decent. One thing that might have thrown ya, it uses lemon drop hops, which I'm not really a huge fan of. I think the industry thought people would love the name and it would make them think of lemon candy. They definitely have more of a green, grassy kind of thing to them. But this beer is super affordable, so I'll give it that. It's 4.4% alcohol, 20 IBUs. You can go home with a 15-pack for $18.99. That's the normal price. And then Founders gets put on sale quite a bit. So you're looking at two-row flake corn and some crystal malts in here. Interesting. Which definitely had a color. Little more pronounced color, yeah. For sure. It was okay. It wasn't like a huge one for me. I did not love it. I'm surprised from a good brewer like Founders. Thank All right, beer number four we thought was maybe flawed. I'm scared to see who this is. Oh, Shorts Locals Lite. Ouch, Shorts. Yeah, something was wrong with this. I don't know if, that's crazy for that to be that off. I mean, Shorts is being run. Their big contract brewery is a very modern facility. It's owned by Heineken. I mean, there should be QC in place to avoid some. They're owned by Heineken? Mm-hmm, wow, low cal, low carb, it says on the can. And they had to make this beer, right, because people would come into their brew house and all they had were like ales and stuff and people were like, well, I want a Miller Lite. Yep, that is correct. They started making this beer in 2004 and it's an all malt beer, too. Well, they're still working on perfecting the beer. Yeah, Pilsner Malt Perla Hops, 115 calories, three carbs. I mean, when this is made, when it's not infected, it's an all right beer, but this is sad to see. Today is not its day. Not good. All right, moving on, beer number five. The Champagne of Beers. Ooh, High Life. One of my highest rated on the day, loved it. Soft grain, that was the one I was going on about the pillowy head. Yes, yeah. Crispy clean and touch hops. Iro, macro, soft, slight tang. There was a little bit of tanginess. And based on the eye test today, this was clearly the winner of the champagne of beers. Yes. High Life, worth mentioning, when we've been talking about price and everything, now we're in the realm of you can get a 12 pack for 8.99 or you can get a 30 rack for 17.99. Oh, too much. High Life is of course the bottled in a clear bottle beer. They always bother to mention that. It's kind of neat if you're wondering, well, how come High Life don't get skunk then? Miller went to Great Lakes to develop a hop extract that removes the photochemical reaction potential of the hop so that you don't have to worry about skunkiness. One of the two acids or something is completely removed. It keeps whatever the bittering acid is, but it removes the one that has the reaction and creates the skunk. Word. And they use that in like MGD64 as well, which is also in clear glass. Nice, love it. High life, great as always. Number six, Revolution Cold Time. I like this. Yeah, this is one of the better ones. I said it was macro-y. Lightly sweet, dry finish, crisp. Yeah, to me, this was like the, if you're looking at it from the Crispy Boi perspective, this was the winner for me. Or what should be Crispy Boi. Tied for my highest rating of the day. Very nice beer. Now, does this have the Roger Adamson nice price guarantee? Unfortunately, this has definitely got some craft pricing. So this is again where, you know, I thought this tasted nice. So that's a well-made beer. A 12-pack is gonna be $17.99. That's a big question mark with these, you know. It's good beer, man, but. 4.8% alcohol, 15 IBUs. It's made with Great Lakes water. I don't know why they say Great Lakes and not Lake Michigan. Two-row barley. Piping it in from here on. They have that pump over on Irving Park that has the Lake Superior water. It's made with Mexican lager yeast, which I thought was kind of an odd thing to emphasize, and I think that's from a sales standpoint of, get people who are drinking Modelo to start drinking this beer. Put this beer in blue packaging and say it's made with a Mexican lager yeast. Get some Modelo drinkers to drink this. What about number seven, Jim? Number seven. No word on this if this is the Pat Brophy batch of- Croisin. I think this is a batch after. This is Art History Croisin, also tied for my highest rating on the day. I have that very highly rated as well. This is a good day for your boi here. All my favorites I'm giving high marks to when tasting blind. We just gotta hope I love hams. I thought maybe 10 was gonna be this with the Funky Hop because this batch of Croisin at least, TBD for future batches, was made with the Coyo Hops, which are kind of an oddball hop that I was surprised to see featured singularly in this lager because they were used in the original, original batch of our collaboration with Art History, our Italian lager called Bellistrada. And they're a cool hop. I think they're almost exclusively though usually used as kind of a team player. So as a component part, they're definitely a little different when they're on their own, but they're not employed here and like with a heavy hand by any means. It's just that it's a pretty lean beer to begin with. This beer is fully croissant, which is kind of the standout interesting thing about this. So they're taking a little bit of fresh beer from a different brew. So this young, fresh, still actively fermenting beer is added to the fully matured lager or almost fully matured at that point. You mix the two together and then you get a chance to blend both the new and the old that is gonna provide for some natural carbonation in the beer. There's a little potential to clean up if any new little bit of clean up of if you have anything left in the beer. My notes specifically state very fine bubble and notable bittering hops on the finish. I think very well done. I thought it was like the reverse Pilsner because the bittering's all on the back end. It's like there's nothing at the beginning and it's like the reverse of the way it's supposed to be. It's a great beer. It's exactly the type of beer I demand personal batches of. 4.6% alcohol, 12 IBU. Almwalt? No, there's some corn in there. And I believe they've upped the corn content in subsequent batches. Two rows, six rows. This being one of those batches. Although I think they might be dialing it back some. We need to ask for more info, but there's a tiny bit in there if you want to revisit it. I was talking to the brewmaster and head brewer over at Geneva Lagerwerks and Greg Brown, and he was saying how in the previous times when they've made this beer, they've essentially had to take some of another beer as the croisoning component, but he was excited that they'll be running up for the first turn now where he can croison a batch of croison with another batch of croison. Well, that would make sense. So, perhaps some of the character that you get in this batch might be because it was like croisoned with Bauhaus. Yeah, no, with Munich, I think. It's varied, but again. Okay, good beer. Great, all right, number eight. This one I thought was pretty good. Pabst Blue Ribbons. I did enjoy that. I had that a very good minus, so it was just on the, not quite my highest rating, but second place. I tell you what, in these macro blind taste tests, Pabst always cleans up. Always. It's very well documented that in a lot of blind taste tests, Pabst always does pretty well. Yeah, tangy, sweet, crispy. The sweetness is definitely there. I mean, Pabst has a pretty pronounced corn character. Yeah, I've got all the same notes. Soft, sweet, slightly tangy. That was number eight, yeah. Crushable. Crushable. Nine out of 10 brofies, love it. Yes. I mean, there's a reason why I've kind of jokingly called this new movement with these premium or just craft American loggers, the Craft Pabst movement. They're chasing that. They know that there's a lot of people though and push comes to shove, they end up going, you know, I'll just have a PBR. Yep. All right, let's talk about pricing on why they're all chasing the beloved PBR. 12 packs are 10.99, 30 racks, 16.99. This big 24-ounce can, I think, is a whopping two bucks, maybe, so. Does that come with a brown bag or do you have to pay extra? Gotta ask. So yeah, Pap's still delivering, showing well. Pap's, of course, to spoil for some of you, is brewed by Miller in Milwaukee at the Miller Brewing Company. Not for long, though. They even tried suing them to release them from that contract, so we shall see what the future holds as far as where Pap's beers are gonna be brewed, but as for right now, brew it Miller. And a testament to how successful, because at the time, Miller thought, yeah, whatever, we'll brew this retro brand. It's available in like 10 states. It's not a big deal. They built that brand in a monster now. I mean, it's all 50 states. It's crazy how well known and beloved Pap's does again, so a marketing success. Success. All right, number nine. Bell's Lager for the Lakes. Now, this is a read-on recipe from Lager of the Lakes, correct? Correct, yeah. So, shout out to Tom in the beer office. I don't think I've ever seen someone so mad. When he was the most ardent fan of Lager of the Lakes, which is a traditional Bohemian style pilsner. And again, it was hoppy. It had a lot of aggressive noble hop character and it was a phenomenal beer. When Bell's ended up being purchased slash merging and is now part of New Belgium, New Belgium noticed the old Montucky Cold Snacks fad. They decided to brew a beer like that out in New Belgium. And then all of a sudden they figured, hey, we care about the environment and we use Great Lakes water. So, Lager of the Lakes got re-renamed and reformulated into Lager for the Lakes. They wanted to dial back the bitterness to make it more approachable. They definitely have. And they dialed back the ABV a little bit too. I love that beer, Lager of the Lakes. I'm with Tom. That was very upsetting to hear that. I love the packaging. It had that old-timey maritime map on it of the Great Lakes. Totally. When we visited there, this was a few years ago. They said, is there anything we can do for you guys? You've always been such good supporters. What would you like to do while you're there? And I go, can we get Zwicklepores of Lager of the Lakes? I'm like, what? I think we'll have to check, I guess. And then the brewers go, hell yeah. The brewers, I thought it was great. So we were all sitting there drinking Lager of the Lakes out of the tank. Come on, what a modest ask. Yeah, so it's really sad to see. And again, like this effort sometimes to give people what they think is what they want, meaning it's gonna appeal to a larger audience. I mean, this lost most of the Noble Hop character in this effort of, you know, when you read the description now, this beer is for quote, good times, refreshment and easy drinking. It's still all malt, which is, I like to see. And they're selling it, you know, once Bell's merged and is now part of New Belgium, they offer beer at great prices. So I mean, you can get a 12 pack of this for 15.99. So, you know, as much as I'm gonna sit here and be like, how dare you get rid of the, you know, if you've never had lager of the lakes, you don't know any better. So this is still a solid all malt beer that you can get at a, you know, somewhat decent price. But again, it's still 15.99 a 12 pack, so it's not cheap, but. I mean, this made it into my second tier of favorites, for sure. Yeah, I said, you know, I don't know. I like the color. I thought it got, it got, get some bonus points for that. I actually found a little bit of delicate floralness to the hop aromas. And, you know, I didn't write much down. It's in my second tier as well. Yeah. All right. Number 10, this was the really hoppy, bitter one, yeah? Yeah. Yeah. King Crispy. Deschutes King Crispy. So this was the outlier of all. Like I said, I really didn't want to put any Helles or Pilsners in here, because it's somewhat different. But I think this got an exception for two reasons. One, because they literally called it King Crispy. So they're definitely embracing the whole movement and the demand for crispy beers. It's from Deschutes, which Brophy loves. So I know you'd like to see a Deschutes beer here. It's won this competition out west. It was like the Bitburger Brewing Challenge. It was a bunch of small breweries that were making lagers and in Waltz's Deschutes and goes, oh yeah, we're known for porters and IPAs, but we love lagers. And then they just dominated the competition and won it. So they've decided to make this year round beer. It is made with Bohemian Pilsner, Carafoam and assiduated malt, as well as of course- Assiduated, huh? Sometimes you do a little bit of that in some beers to increase that crispness. Could you guys say that was like a limey or like citrusy? Someone said lime or lemon, I thought, for this one. So which is odd because it's made with Hallertown middle fruit and tetanane, so. Nobody would think that assiduated malt could be given that kind of zippy citrusy thing. Maybe, yeah, maybe. I don't know, the aroma is not how I remember this beer, so. For me, this was definitely the most interesting beer of the line. It had the most character. I liked it as a beer. It was definitely an outlier. And super fresh. The hot bitterness really stood out, but with snacks, it was really good. Yeah, I really liked this beer. It was good, it was in my second tier. Me too. I liked it a lot. I've had it before and enjoyed it. We're hoping in another can to see how this plays. I've got a one, two, I've got a five-way tie for my highest rating. And if I had to pick highest, I don't know, maybe 13. Maybe that could be recency bias. Yeah, I don't know. I think it's just from the hops. It's just very interesting, bizarre. Bizarre hop character. Again, this is a little better deal than some of your local people that are doing the four-pack 16-ounce, but still by no means cheap. But again, this was the oddball. This is just a true craft Pilsner with a lot of imported malts, imported hops. So all things considered, not a bad deal for that at six-packs for 10.99. Not bad. And they could have just as well called it King Crafty as King Crispy. And it's got this hilarious dude, this ice cube with a crown and a torch, riding a bicycle in the back. I love it, love the whole thing. All right, number 11. Love the number 11. The Banquet. Coors Banquet. Great beer, always has been, always will be. Coors Banquet, whether you, if it's your jam or not, I think of the macros has a lot of character. There's something unique about, I don't know, that there's, there's much, they let much more fruit character come through. My only notes were sweet and corn. Yeah, I am very similar. Yeah, it got my highest rating. Soft, sweet, pale, corny. I think it was kind of put at a disadvantage for being right after. Dijou, it's cause it was so hoppy. One thing that I read, the fruitiness in Coors, I've always described it more of like a acid aldehyde apple, but on their website, now granted, this might have just slipped through, but I found it very interesting, so I want to read it. Quote, the banana flavor you taste, question mark. That happens during the fermentation process. We use the classic technique of closed horizontal box fermentation, which is a fancy way of saying it's done at cold temperatures. Is that a fancy way of saying that? No, horizontal box, huh? Yeah, so I don't know what any of that is all about. I'm gonna have to look into it further, but I don't think you should get any isoamyl from that one lager used. They are malting 100% of their own malt on site at the brewery, which is pretty cool. Also, the only other thing that they felt the need to write on, this is one of the most famous beers in America, and that's the first copy that they have, followed by, Coors Banquet is filtered with Ensinger filters, an old school technique you don't see too often. But we're sticking with it because good character and good beer beats speed every time. Good old Ensingers. Yeah, love the Ensingers. So I looked up Ensinger filters and didn't really get much information available. Ensinger's been out of business for 100 years. Yeah, so I don't know. Again, this is kind of what makes this tough about this American style lager, is that there's not a ton for them to say about the ingredients or the process. So interestingly, with Coors, it was an all malt lager until like 2004 or something. Really? Yeah, it was into this century. They were making it in all malt. It might have been 2002 or something. They did mention Moravian Barley, which was surprising to see. I find that hard to believe they use maybe it was a Moravian strain that's grown here. I guarantee you a lot of the barley. They're not importing all the barley for Coors. They don't talk about it, but I know corn syrup is used. Yeah, it's got corn syrup in it now. 5% ABV, 147 calories, 11.7 carbs. Pretty high calorie. I didn't realize it was that high. Smoky in the bandit beer. Loaded up and trucking. Number 12, I wasn't a huge fan of. Shiner Light. That came off as a light beer. It was very washed out. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah, it definitely had that light beer taste to it, which is just unmistakable. Yeah, I think that this, again, when it's compared to other light beers, and I included it here because Montucki Cold Snacks is a light beer, and I kind of forgot about that until I looked it up. I would much rather drink this than Montucki, and when people are looking for a light beer, I- I gave Montucki a higher rating than this one. No way. That's crazy. I definitely did not. I said tangy, fizzy, nothing, Montucki, creamy, yeasty, crisp, light, but nothing finish. I mean, this beer is mega light for what it's worth. It's very light. And I think it deserves some credit for delivering flavor at its super, not only is it light in calorie, it's basically low carb to a level that's not far off from like Mick Ultra. Really? Well, yeah, Mick Ultra is just water. It doesn't taste like anything. So if you're comparing it in that arena, I'd give it high marks if it's in that same playing field. This is 4.2% ABV, 9 IBUs, 2 row barley, Golding Hopps, which is kind of interesting, 99 calories. So it's under 100 calories and only 5.2 carbs. Or you could drink Guinness. Right. Yeah. I mean. Ray, new to the podcast, but hopping on the old saw. No, he's not wrong. I knew there was a reason I was invited. No, we say that all the time. For 25 more calories, you can drink Guinness, which, yeah, I always tell people just to then do a beer nerd speech that Guinness is your best light beer option, but they want something light, not Guinness, light in color. Shiner Light's been out since 2011, and I've always thought it's something that people should at least try. If you're drinking the Macro Light beers, I think this one is a much better standout. $14.99 a 12-pack. That's great. Great price, great beer. Well, I don't know about great, but good enough for light beer. Again, I think when you keep it in that category of that we're talking about, not just light and color, low calorie. You could do a lot worse, a lot worse. And most people do regularly. Number 13, this might be my favorite of the day. You knew there was a reason it came in the 16 ounce form. Why don't you give me a little more? This might have been my favorite of the day, as he's looking at all the cans, like I would have included. I do have it, it has my highest rating on the day, tied with number five and number seven. Well, this one is much fresher than the last time we did it, Pat. This is a July. Oh, and number six, number six tied with it, too. Best by July, so it's. Oh, so you didn't give me out of code hams this time? Wow, what do you know? I like it. It was not out of code. It was not out of code. I am totally redeemed. I'm gonna parade around the office the rest of the afternoon. Hams, the beer refreshing, beer number 13, also known as the best beer we've had today. I'm so happy this was hams and not 11. I was worried that 11 was hams, but it was. 11 was good. It was really sweet, though. Yeah, it was really sweet. Well, this one's pretty sweet, too. I think you thought that 11 was hams at one point. It was potential, yeah. I said my notes on 13 before I knew what it was were, beer-y. Beer-y, soft, creamy, sweet grain. Proof that everyone should try some blind taste tests because Brophy drinks doesn't just talk about hams a lot. Brophy drinks a lot of hams. It's really tough to be able to guess what's what with these beers. Oh, it's impossible. Hey, maybe you can get up a collection and buy the bear back from Disney. What? Disney owns it? Yeah, Disney bought the hams bear just so they could retire it. Really? And they turned it into an animatronic beer. And then they froze its head under and it's under the Magic Kingdom Castle. That's right. When I went to the hams beer collector club annual show a couple months ago. And where was that at? That was at the Edina Minnesota Convention Center and I got a picture with a guy in the hams bear suit. Did you have beers with them afterwards? I didn't tell you guys I went to that. No. Oh yeah, I got a big new hams sign for my basement. Oh man, you didn't have any hams signs. I mean, I was drinking hams when I was there. No, I had hams signs. Yeah, my buddy Stu Ream and I went. He got a big hams sign for his basement too. Stu Ream and some of Ream's butchers? Yes. Nice. Now you're both going to furry conventions as they are? So you both went all the way to Minnesota just for this? Yeah, yeah. Fueled on meat sticks alone. Yeah. No, yeah, we had a lot of meat sticks and jerky in the car. Oh man, but it smelled great in there. No, we drove up there on a Friday night. How many hours does this take to do? Well, we drove to my parents' house, so it's like four hours. They are an hour from the convention center, went there Saturday morning, looked at all the stuff, bought our stuff, got some new glassware, some signs, had a few hams, and then we went home. See, people wonder how dudes make friends as adults. It's over meat. Right. That's how you do it. Yeah. And the occasional buffalo blue cheese flavored cheese curl. Right. Which is outstanding with the hams. Some great snacks here today, some great salty snacks. We need to go through, review all the snacks. Yeah. So we had, again- Maybe we should talk about hams real quick. Okay, fine. Haven't we talked about hams enough on this show? A lot. Yeah, but not from a technical point of view. Only how technically drunk I get on it. All I really wanted to say is this one thing. When Broke kind of guffawed at the core's calories, I just wanted to let him know that hams is 142 calories. And 12 carbs. I am a noted fat ass, so. Hams, we've always talked about one of your absolute best macro options out there. As much as Brophy will bemoan it, 30 packs just went up. So they're 17.99, but in the grand scheme of things, that's still super affordable. Even though they just went up $1, which cheap ass Pat Brophy, who calls me cheap about bourbon, is mad about a dollar. I was boycotting them for like a month and a half. I was drinking old style because I could get a 12 pack for $8.99 or something instead, because I normally get the 6 pack 16 ounce, which went up from $3.99 to $5.99, which is absolutely outrageous. Ravisty. Outrageous price increase. Anyway, if you haven't had hams, you need to try it. And I think Solidify's, this was Pat's favorite beer of the day. I think it ranked right up there for me as well. I don't know about you guys. Yeah, it was in my top tier. So this is this is what the craft guys have to know is that when push comes to shove, you can go buy a 30 rack of hams for 15.99. And it's legitimately good beer for what it is. It's an American lager. So if you're trying to make an American lager versus a Halisa Pilsner, a Dortmunder, something that's all grain, has some hot profile, you know, is built that way. That's what makes this recent trend of trying to essentially make macro beer at Craft Breweries a little puzzling. Yeah, I mean, it's economies of scale. You can't do it. You can't do it on that scale and make it make any sense. Unless you have a rail spur coming into your brewery, delivering grain to silos the size of most other breweries. Exactly. Well, and also the technical know-how, let's face it, these are the hardest beers, some of the hardest beers to brew, and these guys have been doing it for a very long time. Some of the most talented brewers in the world. Yes, and they can hire the best people. And I think that's one of the things a lot of people don't understand is the people that work at those breweries have a lot of technical expertise and know-how, and they're just as talented as anyone else in that field, if not more so. Absolutely, and quality controls off the charts. They're testing everything. They're not going to release anything with any off flavors. That's my other main takeaway from this, is that I normally, when people talk about this category, point to Founder's Solid Gold as one of the overlooked beers that Founders is so famous for all day in our other IPAs. I'll take the Rev Cold time, man. But so, what I'm getting at here is that this batch of Founder's Solid Gold did not deliver how it normally tastes to me. The Shorts Locals Light was straight up infected. The Shoots King Crispy was different, probably from different old European hoplots or something. So again, these are the pitfalls of the little guys with searching for hop varietals and just the dynamics of scale of their breweries and their quality control programs. So that again, if you're going into this deep end, into this big guy's game, that can be something to seriously consider. And one of the things that everybody kind of acknowledges about beer made at the macro places is I've never had a bad hams ever. And I've been drinking it for 20 years. Except that old one you guys gave me the last time you did this. Remember that made up story about where he was trying to convince us that he couldn't pick out or like hams because it was old? It was. Classic episode. Hey, but shout out to Revolution. That's the first time I ever had that beer. And I think that's a testament to what those guys are doing, that they can go toe-to-toe with the big boys. Highlife, hams, art history, Kroizen, Revolution, Cold Time, Coors Banquet, all my standouts for the day. I think my list is precisely the same as yours. I think it's interesting that nine of these, ten of these have a blue theme. Very significant, very standout blue. Hamm's the beer refreshing. Hamm's the beer refreshing. I don't know what it is about blue. Refreshing. I guess it's blue. It started with EDR. Makes you think of water. It's the refreshiness. And sky. Sky. Snack roundup, we had Hur's Buffalo Blue Cheese Flavored Cheese Curls. You get a whole line of different Hur's chips at a Binny's New You. Often on our penny programs, when you buy a couple 30 racks or whatever and you get peanuts or salty chips or whatever for a penny, these are often in that. The Habanero Ranch Hur's potato chips are stellar. Yeah, and the horseradish sour cream potato, is it sour cream horseradish, I think? I thought it was cheddar. Cheddar, maybe it's cheddar horseradish? Yeah, horseradish cheddar, yeah. Okay, yeah, those are good. And the deep dish pizza cheese curls, very good. We had Great Lakes potato chip company, Salt and Vinegar, Great Lakes are made up in Traverse City. One of our finest Midwestern chipperies. Yep, solid kettle style. Chipperies, good brittle crunch. Good, crunchy, skin-on potato chips. Jim, have you, you're a big food tourist, have you visited any chipperies? I have not been in it, I don't think they have tours yet, but maybe one day. All right, hey, K, don't interrupt, we also had the Utz Hoops mix, which is on the way out, it's being replaced by some other seasonal sports mix. Baseball mix. But we've got Utz, Utz is an underrated chip, obviously known for the pretzels, this Hoops mix was kind of like their take on the Lay's Munchies with cheesy things in it, chips, pretzels, et cetera. We had Pop Daddy Pretzels beer cheese flavored pretzel sticks, which were really outstanding. I haven't had anything from Pop Daddy before, but we've had a big rack in the store for a while. Good stuff. Those are good. And of course. And of course, one of the best things today was the Binny's Beverage Depot Golf Club mix, which is a sweet and salty snack mix. It's got peanuts, cashews, honey roasted peanuts, honey roasted cashews, almonds, little sesame sticks in there. By far the most. Little pretzels. By far the snack we get emailed the most about. Yeah, this is definitely my go-to on a penny promo when I'm so fortunate to buy something that is eligible for it. Hey, why do we get emails on this? I don't know, people just ask about it. They're like, I can never find the Buffalo, I can never find the golf mix. Where do I? Yeah, it always sells out first. It always sells out first. Interesting. It's classy. It is a classy snack mix. If I could just recommend also the Great Lakes Buffalo flavor is excellent and the Utz fried pickle. Our in-store snack game compared to when I started 15 and a half years ago, unbelievable. It's pretty solid now. This is a good line up of snacks. I would say I love the Utz pretzel rods too. Yeah, and the Utz cheese balls. It's that big old bucket of cheese balls. It's just awesome. Just a feed bag of cheese balls. Although the Utz pretzel rods are millionaire pricing. I don't know. That's kind of like the crap sound of the snack aisle. That's what you have with your craft pills, right? Yeah, you're more of a, what was it? You're more of a Vintner's guy, which we also sell. But Jim and I wanted the class to join up, so we left the Vintners on the sales floor. Solid picks. Great Lakes are the bomb, and these vinegar ones are really good. At one point, they were not very good. They were not enough vinegar flavor on those. I think they've dialed in the balance of vinegar and salt pretty well. Well, I hope you guys have enjoyed this episode as much as I enjoy a good crispy lager beer. Do you like your episode, bro? I just like TaylorMade for you. I loved my episode. He's virtually glowing. All right, listeners, we hope you enjoyed that, too. Hope you learned something new. If you haven't tried these beers, you should try all of them except those couple that we are not endorsing. Obviously, you should try some hams. We're only gonna get that price down if we all come together and buy it at the current price. Really show them that it's a brand worth putting some money behind and promoting the price down. Yeah, thanks again for listening. Please leave comments. Let us know what your favorite of these beers. Do you chime in and let us know? We're always like to hear from you. Yeah, did we miss one? I brought in a Brophy's Mountain beer today. I figured there was kind of a tipping point where we had to stop, but there are even more that we could taste through, so. Ooh, part two. Old man Brophy's Mountain. So thanks again for listening. Make sure that you tell your family, friends about our podcast. Tell your mommy said hi. Until next week, I am Roger. I'm Ray. I'm Chris. I'm Jim. I'm Pat. Keep tasting hams.